The Daily Outkick: Thursday, November 1, 2018

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CBS’s SEC Deal Was A Steal: What Happens Next? (Outkick) Tensions have been growing over CBS only paying $55 million a year for SEC game of the week & the SEC title game. So much so that SEC odds of reupping with CBS are nearly zero. So who will get the SEC game of the week? It’s going to be a battle royale.

UCF AD Says College Football Playoffs ‘is Not a Real Playoff’ (Yahoo Sports) While technically possible, can UCF, or any team from a so-called non-power conference, really ever get a playoff berth? “If we go undefeated two straight years and we don’t get in, I’d say it’s impossible,” said Central Florida athletic director Danny White.

The Browns Are Still A Nightmare. But Maybe Not For Long (538) The funny thing is, the Browns have actually shown signs of life this season — at least, by Browns standards. So let’s take a look at where they’ve improved — and whether there is more hope in Cleveland than usual in the wake of the team’s latest coaching shake-up.

Clay Travis on Demaryius Thomas trade: “This is One of the Dumbest Trades of All Time (Lock It In)

College Football Playoff Rankings Judgments: Why LSU Over Notre Dame Legitimizes UCF at No. 12 (CBS Sports) Even though they are going to change many more times before we finally have our four teams, the first set of College Football Playoff Rankings for the 2018 season were released on Tuesday night. To this point, all the rankings really do is provide us with a blueprint for how the CFP Selection Committee thinks. Well, at least until they change their method the next week.

Trump Says He’ll Send 10,000-15,000 Troops to Border (Politico) “We have about 5,000 — we‘ll do up to anywhere between 10 and 15,000 military personnel, on top of border patrol, ICE and everybody else at the border.“ “Nobody’s coming in,” he said of the migrants.

Cousin Sal: The Committee is Dying to Put a Team From Michigan’s Conference in the Playoffs (Lock It In)

.@TheCousinSal: the committee is dying to put a team from Michigan’s conference in the playoffs:

The Case Against Birthright Citizenship (WSJ) President Trump accomplished something remarkable this week: He sent his harshest critics and closest allies running to the Constitution. In an interview about immigration, the president argued that the “ridiculous” policy of birthright citizenship has to end—and that he can do it through an executive order.

The Power of Tua Tagovailoa, the Megastar Redefining Alabama’s Dynasty (Sporting News) There’s nothing else like it in college football right now. It started on Jan. 8 when he engineered the second-half comeback in last year’s College Football Playoff championship game; a 26-23 victory against Georgia at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. It has since snowballed through an eight-week stretch this season in which No. 1 Alabama (8-0) outscored opponents 165-31 in the first quarter alone.

The Politics of Pot: How Elections Will Play Into Weed Laws(Bloomberg) Pot legalization is on the ballot in North Dakota and Michigan, while voters in Missouri and Utah will weigh in only on medical marijuana. Weed is currently legal for adult use in nine states and Washington, D.C., and with polls indicating the recreational measures are likely to pass, that would mean 25 percent of the U.S. population will have access.

HBO and Cinemax Aren’t Available on Dish Network Due to a Dispute (WSJ) AT&T Inc.’s HBO and sister channel Cinemax went dark on satellite broadcaster Dish Network Corp. early Thursday as the two sides couldn’t come to terms on a new distribution agreement. HBO said this is the first time in its more than 40 years of operation that it went dark on a pay-TV provider.

CBS Civil War Rages; Interim CEO Faces Rivals (Deadline Hollywood) As Joe Ianniello prepares to make his inaugural appearance as CBS Corp’s interim CEO tomorrow on the company’s quarterly earnings call, the search for a permanent leader has intensified, both internally and externally.